In the stagnant pride of an outworn race | |
| The Spaniard sail’d the sea: | |
| ’Till we haled him up to God’s judgment-place— | |
| And smashed him by God’s decree! | |
| |
| Out from the harbor, belching smoke, | 5 |
| Came dashing seaward the Spanish ships— | |
| And from all our decks a great shout broke, | |
| Then our hearts came up and set us a-choke | |
| For joy that we had them at last at grips! | |
| |
| No need for signals to get us away— | 10 |
| We were off at score, with our screws a-gleam! | |
| Through the blistering weeks we’d watched the bay | |
| And our captains had need not a word to say— | |
| Save to bellow and curse down the pipes for steam! | |
| |
| Leading the pack in its frightened flight | 15 |
| The Colon went foaming away to the west— | |
| Her tall iron bulwarks, black as night, | |
| And her great black funnels, sharp in sight | |
| ’Gainst the green-clad hills in their peace and rest. | |
| |
| Her big Hontoria blazed away | 20 |
| At the Indiana, our first in line. | |
| The short-ranged shot drenched our decks with spray— | |
| While our thirteen-inchers, in answering play, | |
| Ripped straight through her frame to her very spine! | |
| |
| Then the Texas slid into the fighting game, | 25 |
| With the Iowa closing to get her turn: | |
| And the Colon fled fighting—making bid for fame— | |
| With all her port broadside a sheet of flame, | |
| Though her certain fate was to sink or burn! | |
| |
| In their fleeing Admiral’s hopeless wake— | 30 |
| Too proud to strike, and too weak to aid— | |
| Came the Spanish ships: in their turn to take | |
| Our hurtling shell-fire’s withering rake— | |
| From guns that were served as on drill parade! | |
| |
| From their flaming ports and their flaming decks | 35 |
| The rising smoke hid the colors of Spain. | |
| We had them there with our knives in their necks! | |
| And we hammered them down into shapeless wrecks | |
| With our screaming shells in a fiery rain! | |
| |
| And Wainwright—the cheek of the thing to see!— | 40 |
| Cuts in with the Gloucester, of no-weight tons; | |
| And he takes hell’s broadside, and says, says he: | |
| “I’ll teach your tea-kettles not to fight me!” | |
| And he cracks it back with his tom-tit guns! | |
| |
| Straight to its end went our winning fight— | 45 |
| With the thunder of guns in a mighty roar. | |
| Our hail of iron, casting withering blight, | |
| Turning the Spanish ships in their flight | |
| To a shorter death on the rock-bound shore. | |
| |
| The Colon, making her reckless race | 50 |
| With the Brooklyn and Oregon close a-beam, | |
| Went dashing landward—and stopped the chase | |
| By grinding her way to her dying-place | |
| In a raging outburst of flame and steam. | |
| |
| So the others, facing their desperate luck, | 55 |
| Drove headlong on to their rock-dealt death— | |
| The Vizcaya yielding before she struck, | |
| The riddled destroyers, a huddled ruck, | |
| Sinking, and gasping for drowning breath. | |
| |
| So that flying battle surged down the coast, | 60 |
| With its echoing roar from the Cuban land; | |
| So the dying war-ships gave up the ghost; | |
| So we shattered and mangled the Philistine host— | |
| So the fight was won that our Sampson planned! | |
| |
| In the stagnant pride of an outworn race | 65 |
| The Spaniard sail’d the sea: | |
| ’Till we haled him up to God’s judgment-place— | |
| And smashed him by God’s decree! | |
| |
